This was his daily delenda est Carthago.
"What confounded tricks that fellow is up to! While other honest dealers are glad to rest in winter from their labors, he is busy with things that no cat would think of. He has hired the Platten-See now, and fishes under the ice: a little while ago his people caught three hundredweight of fish in one haul. It is a theft! Before the spring comes he will have cleared the Platten-See, so that not a single perch, not a shad nor a roach, not a garfish, let alone a fogasch,[1] will be left in it. And he sends them all to Vienna. As if that was what fogasch swam in the Balaton lake for—that those Germans might eat them! The damned scoundrel! The government ought to set a price on his head. Sooner or later I will get rid of him, that's certain. When he goes over the bridge I will get a couple of fishermen to throw him into the Danube; I will pay a sentry a couple of gulden to shoot him by accident when he passes in the dark; I'll turn a mad dog into his yard, that it may bite him when he comes out in the morning. They ought to hang the rascal! I'll set his house on fire, that he may burn with it! And they ennoble such a fellow! In the town council they make him assessor, and the good-for-nothing sits at the green table with me. I, whose grandfather was of ancient Hungarian nobility, must suffer him near me, this runaway rogue!
[1] Leucia perca.
"But just let him attempt to come near this café. I'll set a band upon him who will throw him out of the window and break his neck! If ever I sat down to table with him I would season his soup so that he would soon be on his back like a dead fish! And this vagabond pays visits to ladies! This Timar, this former supercargo, who used to be a mud-lark! If he happened to be in the company of a brave officer who would call him out, and spit him like a frog—so!"
Herr Brazovics threw a meaning glance on Herr Katschuka, who seemed as if he had heard nothing. He had heard well enough; but what had principally struck him in the monologue of his future father-in-law was that the new millionaire must have made a great breach in the riches of Herr Brazovics, and that this rage was caused by the threatened ruin of the firm. A thought not calculated to increase the officer's joy at the approaching wedding-day.
"No; I will not wait for some one else to get rid of him!" said Brazovics at last, and stood up, laid aside his chibouque, and fetched his bamboo cane from its corner. "I have a dagger. I bought it since the fellow settled here, on purpose for him" (and that he might be believed he drew the sharp blade out of his sword-stick). "There it is! The first time we meet alone, I will stick it into him and nail him to the wall like a bat. And that I swear!"
And he tried by rolling his bloodshot eyes to give emphasis to his threat. He drank the rest of his coffee standing, drew on his overcoat, and said he was going to business.
He would come home early (that is, early in the morning). Every one was glad when he went.
Just as Herr Brazovics went carefully down the steps to the street—for his corpulence prevented his running down-stairs—who should come to meet him but—Timar!
Now is his chance; at striking distance, and in a dark place where no one can see them. We know by history that most murders are committed on the stairs. Timar had no weapon with him, not even a walking-stick; but Herr Athanas had a stiletto two feet long.